The past few months in the Sussex trenches have reminded me a bit of Prince Harry and Meghan’s last year in the royal fold, 2019. By that I mean, Harry and Meghan are being attacked and smeared wall-to-wall, so much so that constructive criticism made in good faith is seen as all part of the larger blanket of negativity. When Harry and Meghan stepped away from royal life, one of my biggest hopes was that they would figure out a way to operate, exist and thrive in an entirely new way and never play by those “royal rules” ever again. Yet here we are, four years later, and they’re still under siege, just in a different way. This time, it’s about their business and their refusal to be proactive to protect themselves professionally. Their non-response to the nastiness of the Spotify divorce has led to all of this: months of speculation in the US and UK about their business. People Magazine has another exclusive as part of their cover story and this one is all about their business:

In 2020, they were overvalued. “The attention, commotion, and hubbub was wrapped up in the fact that Harry is a royal, and people threw money at them with hopes and dreams that it would translate into success,” a Hollywood insider tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s cover story. “But I think it’s been a rude awakening for everyone — it’s like they built a house with no foundation. The royal element, and the in some ways the drama around them, inflated the price, deals and expectations.”

Their Netflix docuseries was a big success for Meghan: Harry & Meghan broke streaming records, and a different Hollywood source says that Meghan displayed a keen marketing sensibility and was closely involved in the promotional plan. “She was fully engaged and had actionable ideas,” says the source. However, Prince Harry and Meghan’s Netflix projects without a royal component haven’t shared the series’ success. The docuseries Live to Lead, about various global changemakers, debuted to indifference, and an animated project called Pearl, about a little girl inspired by female leaders, was quietly dropped last year, although other scripted projects are reportedly in the works.

Archetypes: One veteran podcasting executive says Spotify is partly to blame, pointing out that the Obamas have since moved their podcasting operations to Audible: “No one stuck it out [at Spotify], because the shows weren’t done well, or they overpaid and they couldn’t bring in audiences,” says the executive.

But critics hated Archetypes’ execution. “What works in podcasting is authenticity and intimacy and revealing things either about yourself or about a topic that says something that [listeners] haven’t really thought about,” says the executive. “None of that happened. And Meghan wasn’t prepared to do that, because she lives an incredibly guarded life.”

Unsteady footing & overstaffed on one end: A source close to the Archetypes production says the couple was not set up for success at Spotify: “They were given no formal lay of the land to kick things off, so they were already on unsteady footing even before the ink was dry.” But the protective web spun around the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did not help. “Things moved very slowly on both ends,” the source says. “It was rare to have a direct conversation with them, so everything had to flow through a million middle persons.”

Meghan signing with WME: Up next? Meghan signed with recently signed with powerhouse agency William Morris Endeavor — something a top Hollywood insider describes as “really smart, because they can put her in touch with filmmakers and creative people and producers and people who know how to make a TV show or a film.” With the right projects and people around them, the insider says, a second act is within reach: “I think within Hollywood, people are rooting for them.”

[From People]

“What works in podcasting is authenticity and intimacy and revealing things either about yourself…None of that happened. And Meghan wasn’t prepared to do that, because she lives an incredibly guarded life.” Again, Archetypes was a huge success and while I would have loved for Meghan to get more intimate and personal, she had a steep learning curve as a podcaster and she hit her stride within a few episodes. Spotify was stupid to let her go and it was disgusting for a Spotify executive to publicly bad-mouth them on their way out the door. Which… is why the pushback shouldn’t be from various unnamed sources in People or Variety – the Archewell spokesperson needed to go on the record with the Sussexes’ perspective the moment Bill Simmons’ “f–king grifter” comments got picked up. Did anyone at Archewell tell H&M that? Did they listen? You can yell at me forever for saying that they need to overhaul their communications strategy, but the whole reason People Magazine and the trade papers are still talking about the Spotify mess is because Harry and Meghan refused to communicate their side and push back with a different narrative.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Spotify. Cover courtesy of People.